Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World
I'm enjoying Victorian/Edwardian literature at the moment. I've moved on from Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and stories to The Lost World, which is one of three Doyle novels built around the adventures of Professor Challenger--one of the least likable "heroes" that I think that a novel that I have read has ever featured. He's smart, but impulsive, short-tempered, arrogant, rude, and violent. And yet it is a rousing adventure tale. I doubt that I am spoiling anything when I tell you that the novel involves a isolated plateau in South America filled with Mesozoic species. But in the same way that Crichton's Jurassic Park can't be reduced down to something as oversimplified as "dinosaurs out of control" and "greedy software engineer" (something which exists only in fiction, I assure you), The Lost World is a deeper story of professional jealousy, and how love will drive people to do stupid things. And it's a lot of fun!
One interesting mention in the introduction is that there is a line in the book that really does make you wonder if Doyle might have had something to do with the Piltdown Man fraud. And yes, even if I had not been warned in advance, the line sticks out and demands your attention!
Like many of the Sherlock Holmes' stories, there are American connections--enough so that you find yourself wondering if Doyle did this because Americans were such an important part of his world, or if he was playing to what he knew would probably be the biggest part of his market.
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